Evaluation

Final piece

This is the final piece that we have produced.
We received some feedback from the rest of our class, evidently as they were the target audience, their feedback was imperative for our knowledge.

This is the positive feedback we received:

+" Good use of music- slowly builds up tension"
+"Good mise en scene- effective within genre"
+"Realistic narrative, although could have built more suspense before drowning ( effective mise en scene)"
+"Last shot of hand was AMAZING- really effective"
+"Great shot of thumb rubbing picture"


This is the negative feedback we received:

-" Lighting poor at times- could be improved"
-" More like a trailer"
-" Music at beginning of extract was too quiet"
-"Confusing? who are we following? which character?"

These comments were a good hindsight as to what our target audience thought of a final piece. This helped us as a group to identify problems that we could improve on. Due to our continuous playbacks we had become numb to realising any defects to our piece.

The feedback that we were most drawn to were the last 3 negative comments:

• "More like a trailer"- we had re-pieced our entire sequence in order to avoid this sort of error as we were told by our teacher before.
• "Music at the beginning of extract was too quiet"- There was no music up until the main title and we kept that low in order to build up the tension as the sequence progressed.
• "Confusing? who are we following? which character?"- Ideally the randomess of the of the characters is supposed to throw the audience off track as this is a psychological thriller. However the main focus is suposed to be on the stalker and the girl from the couple, the other charater is a previous love.
  

I was quite impressed with our final piece and how it turned out. I had gained a lot of experience by working with the Macs and the programmes on it. Overall we received a 'B' for our group. Personally, I think that the grade could have been better, but it wasn't all too bad. Ideally i was hoping for an 'A'.

Notes on Evaluation Questions

Thriller Evaluation Notes.

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1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

- Dark colour to invoke danger
- Cu of objects, such as photos and couples
- Dark and moody music in order to engage audience
- Smooth editing in relation to the music
- We challenge the generic codes by having our titles on separate clips
- Teen thrillers generally tend to use younger people; darker colours and a gradual build up in editing.
- Se7en was our inspiration- C+C for that is dark colours and predominantly close ups of objects. E.g. The photo in next and the hands in se7en.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups

- Lonely white male in his teens
- Male is framed at a lower angle predominantly
- Relation to our target audience is by invoking a dangerous dominance by the male gender.

3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

-New line cinema as our product is closely based on that to what se7en is.
- Next is most likely to be a TV movie as most of our target audience is associated with a television set.
- Our media product would be released as we believe that our target audience has a major interest for this sort of thriller sub genre. It might offer opportunities for franchising and merchandising as there are many aspects of the movie that can be deviated off.
-The mise en scene is mainly books, water and very mysterious clothing as well as low key lighting.

4) Who would be the target audience for your media product?

- The target audience for our media product would be teenagers 15+ as it would be applicable to the male character shown in the film.
- Se7en is similar to ours media product. Se7en appeals to 18+ due to more violence and language misuse.

5) How did you attract your target audience?

- Our target audience is primarily white males aged 15+.
- The beginning of the film introduces a young male that identifies with the relationship problems in a teen’s life.
- There are some POV shots used in our opening. Such as the book and at the park when he is looking at the couple.
- The audience is made to empathise and sympathise with the character’s desperation for love. This draws upon the troubled relationships that teens have during their life. They are being allowed to witness the extent to which a person’s hatred dominates their life.
- This has a negative impact on the audience as they are watching people die, however it is applicable to the sub genre we’re creating.
- This draws back on to the generic C+C of horror thrillers which are to have gruesome ordeals within the context of the movie.

6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

- Our strengths with the camera work is that we were able to hold our shots steady, however out weaknesses is that we had trouble positioning the camera correctly sue to faulty tripods.
- We did have a point where we had used zooming a lot and we had overcome that by our teacher telling us that we are banned from using it. This made it easier for us to focus in the task.
- We learnt how to effectively use a tripod along with its extensions and fixtures. This gave us stability throughout our filming processes.
- During the post production stage I became familiar with Premiere Pro and Sound booth as well as the overall operation on an Apple Mac. In Premiere Pro I learnt how to time the footage that we had collected, I learnt how to import footage and sounds and how to piece them next to each other. In sound booth I learnt how to record sounds, such as crunching of stones, this is evident in the animatic which I made for “terror in the night”.

7) Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

­-The research into the thriller genre was extensive. Emily was in charge of the storyboarding. We had decided on taking photographs and using them to represent the action in the opening. This helped us organise our shot list and helped us visualise what we needed to capture. The animatic allowed us to see what sort of transitions we needed and how long each shot should last. This helped us understand what shots needed to go where and how to structure our editing.
- Our shot standard has improved immensely as during the preliminary task some of the shots were very uneven and unsteady. However, in our final piece all of our shots are steady. Also, our point of view shots have improved too. They were similar to our normal shots, unsteady and uneven, but now they are smooth and focused very well.
- I feel much more comfortable with using a camera and working with the Apple Macs as I now have fluent working knowledge with them.
- I feel that our final product will be quite successful in fulfilling the required task as we have adhered to a strict regime of what we can have and what not. We have included the titles necessary in the right order and have key footage that helps to establish the narrative of our thriller.

6th March-- Final Filming session

Today Amber and Emily had undergone our last filming session before we edited the sequence again to the final cut. I could not attend this shoot either as i had lessons during the scheduled time. Although, the filming went well and they managed to get the shots we needed. However, the main actor ,James, fell ill so they improvised with another person and made sure that the camera couldn't see his face. Although this was a very big challenge they overcame it and i felt that they did a good job of disguising the replacement.

The lighting that day was decent and this meant that they were able to get good closeups of the couple. which is what we needed the most.

The props that we included were a beanie hat which James usually wears but also disguised our replacement, and a Love poem book which the stalker was reading. They had decided to use a POV shot of the stalker reading the book, this proved to be challenging but i felt that they did a good job and they were able to overcome it well.

We filmed in a park, which can be a typical meeting place for couples. This we felt added to the reality of the scene as well as the seclusion of the two main characters.

Improvements

We have currently been working on our actual film production. And having gone through the footage we have been working on, we have come to notice that we need to improve some shots and include extra footage to meet the timing requirements. We had a meeting as a group and discussed these issues and we analyzed the movie closely.

These improvements will be:

- To remove the clicking sound heard when James picks up the photo-booth polaroid.

- We will need to include more scenes of Abbie and Andy (the couple) in order to fill the time space up.

- We will also include extra titles in order meet the codes and conventions of the thriller genre.

- Also, nearing the end when the screams enter, we will elongate some of them to fill up the time space.

- The kiss with Ryan and Rosie, will be replaced with another kissing scene of Abbie and Andy in order to keep continuity of those character's. This will then be accompanied by another reaction shot of James looking angered / sad. This will be framed in a long shot so we can establish that James is in the scene.

- We may include a final kiss in order to create a high tension within the context.

- Finally, we will need to edit the music in terms of the transitions. When the music conforms into the piano, we will need to add a bridge in order to keep it smooth and help the editing run smoother.

Progress Report

At the beginning of this course I was quite nervous about what we were going to be doing in our coursework. I had no idea on how to use the Mac’s and had no prior skills in premier pro. However, over the time period that I have passed on I have gained knowledge that surpassed my expectations. I now have full working knowledge of Premiere Pro and I am beginning to become more familiar with the Mac’s. For example, when we had to do our first storyboard task, I took on the responsibility of drawing out the images and writing the additional notes and then I was also delegated the task of editing the animatic. After having lost the initial animatic, I had to reconstruct the whole thing and this is when I became familiar with the contents of Premiere Pro and developed my skills and knowledge of the programme. Then came the filming of our actual production piece, as a group we each tried the various areas in the filming process such as , the camera, the editing , the layout of the set etc. I found out that my suited area was the editing and the directing of the filming. These became my strongest point, therefore my weakest area is camera work, and this is primarily due to my inability to have a steady hand. Overall, I found myself able to efficiently with my team and I have progressed majorly in ways I had never suspected. Therefore, I have high hopes of creating a promising final piece.

28th January 2009

Amber and Emily had arranged to do a shoot after school today. They had told me that they were going to do the bath scenes at Amber's house. Therefore Amber asked not to attend this shoot due to her being uncomfortable with a male presence during the shoot.

They re-did the bath scenes today, and although it had taken a long time it turned out to be pretty good. Their initial worry was trying not to get the camera wet, because we tried filming a different way this time, in the bathtub, and they were able to get a variety of different shots and distances which we will be able to choose between.